


To Live a Lie

by Quantum_Reality



Category: Antitrust (2001)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 02:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21111065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quantum_Reality/pseuds/Quantum_Reality
Summary: What was Rebecca thinking when Lyle Barton offered her a devil's bargain?





	To Live a Lie

**Author's Note:**

> I never really thought about this until recently when I re-watched Antitrust, but the Fridge Horror of Rebecca's situation hit me, and I wondered what it was like to be in her shoes knowing she faced only two probably equally not-so-great alternatives. This is the result. Please let me know what you think! I'm **blogquantumreality** on Tumblr.

_New Haven, Connecticut_

At first Rebecca Paul had hated it. Hated the entire idea, and said as much as she angrily threw her coffee across the room.

“What?! No way! I’m not gonna let you… pimp me out to some guy so I can spy on him!”

That cocky FBI or Department of Justice guy or whatever, Barton – he’d just given that _smirk_. That ‘what are _you_ gonna do about it?’ smirk. And he’d said, “Well, then I guess we can go back to the ten years without parole for criminal trespass and possession of a felony amount of narcotics. Not to mention a few other charges.”

_Fucking creep._

She glared at him.

Barton reached out slowly for the telephone on the wall.

His hand gripped the receiver.

Rebecca deflated. She couldn’t go to jail. She _couldn’t_.

She blurted, “Wait!”

“Ah, now the girl comes to her senses.” Barton hung up the phone and crossed his arms. “Well?”

Rebecca slumped in her seat and muttered, “I’ll do it.”

“I didn’t quite hear you, lady.”

Rebecca sat up and hissed, “I’ll do it!”

Barton grinned, left the room and came back a few minutes later with a file folder in his hand. He sat down across from her and extracted a single page from it, then plunked it, and a pen, down in front of her.

“This is your acknowledgement of conditional release. Officially, you’ve been put on probation. Unofficially, of course,” he chuckled, “You’ll be reporting back to me, or someone else – it hasn’t been decided yet – regarding a certain bright young man at Stanford University they expect to recruit after he graduates. And why, your previous record might just disappear if you play along. Of course, we will need to give you a new name, all that.”

Rebecca stared down at the piece of paper.

_Freedom_. _But at what price?_

Rebecca didn’t have a choice, really. She grabbed up the pen and scrawled out her signature on the final line, then threw the paper and pen back across the table and folded her arms. Slouching in her chair, she stared across the room at the spilled coffee puddle in the corner.

_So that’s it. Freedom is slavery._

A bitter laugh almost escaped her lips, but she managed to restrain herself. She half-croaked, utter defeat flooding her, “So who’s this guy?”

“His name is Milo Hoffman.”


End file.
